Huge screw up?

When I read the headline I figured it meant the Norwegian runners had carefully studied the map and figured out the location of a bunch of the controls on an old map. That's the sort of thing that a lot of us do when we've got an old map. Some people are very good at it.

But when I read the story, I found out that the organizers had allowed runners to run in the terrain before the event and the Norwegians had found control locations marked with tape.

Who knows if it affected the results, but it just doesn't feel right.

I don't generally like criticizing organizers, especially when I didn't participate in the event and don't really know the story. So, I won't criticize the organizers, but I've got to wonder...Was this a huge screw up?

*The Nordic Meeting is a competition with teams from Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Looking through the competitor list, it looks like it is mostly younger elite runners who are a bit below the top national team level.